.

John 9:39-41

39 And Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind.”40 Those of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these things and said to Him, “We are not blind too, are we?”41 Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but since you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.

.

One of the primary traits of the narcissistic Pharisees was their attitude of moral superiority and refusal to acknowledge that they had any sin – even though their inward lives were full of sin. In this they deceived and lied to both themselves and others. This can also be seen in Luke 18:9-14, Matthew 23:25-28, and Matthew 9:10-13.

.

M Scott Peck was a psychiatrist whose personal journey ultimately led him to commit to Christianity. By observation and analysis, through the lens of Christianity, he reached the same conclusion that Jesus had already made clear above.

When seemingly “normal” people become arrogant and abusive after they get a little power or success, we may reasonably wonder whether the seeds of that pride were latent in their heart prior to their success. Uzziah, King of Judah is a case in point:

.

2 Chronicles 26

26 And all the people of Judah took Uzziah, who was sixteen years old, and made him king in the place of his father Amaziah…….

.

4 He did right in the sight of the Lord according to all that his father Amaziah had done.5 He continued to seek God in the days of Zechariah, who had understanding through the vision of God; and as long as he sought the Lord, God prospered him…….

.

……15 Hence his fame spread afar, for he was marvelously helped until he was strong. 16 But when he became strong, his heart was so proud that he acted corruptly, and he was unfaithful to the Lord his God, for he entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense.

Why does God allow evil (including narcissistic) people to remain on the earth, and by implication, to continue to cause us trouble? In this instance, we are referring to evil people as a group, and not an individual evil person. The answer is found in Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the tares: Continue reading →

43 But now, thus says the Lord, your Creator, O Jacob,And He who formed you, O Israel,“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;I have called you by name; you are Mine!

2 “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;And through the rivers, they will not overflow you.When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched,Nor will the flame burn you.

.

This classic, beautiful statement by God to His beloved Israel is a clear reminder to us that when God allows us to go through deep waters He will be with us in it, and that He will not allow those deep waters to overcome us.

But we might say, “that applies to Israel, and not me”. He repeats the same sentiment toward believers in Romans 8:28-39 when He says that nothing can separate us from His love.

28 And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.29 For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren;30 and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.

.

31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?

I prefer to have blog entries “locked down” before publishing, but in this case I felt it best to go with my work in progress of analyzing the difficult question of how someone might become a narcissist. This is an extra special case of “Putting “Biblical Perspectives On Narcissism” Into Perspective“, where this post should be taken simply as a fellow searcher sharing some thoughts and analysis which you could possibly use as a starting point for your own study rather than looking to it for “the answer”. Some of the following adds a bit of Biblical perspective to what is already discussed in secular literature.

.

How does someone become a narcissist? In It’s Not NPD, It’s A Heart Issue, narcissism is discussed as a heart issue, but how does this happen? I am currently working through five possible reasons someone can become a narcissist. The following has to be considered in light of God’s ultimate Sovereignty as described in Proverbs 16:4, as well as the sin nature and pride inherent in every man. I want to emphasize again that this post is a work in progress, and should just be taken as food for thought.

“God does not bless us begrudgingly. There is a kind of eagerness about the beneficence of God. He does not wait for us to come to him. He seeks us out, because it is his pleasure to do us good. God is not waiting for us; he is pursuing us. That, in fact, is the literal translation of Psalm 23:6, “Surely goodness and mercy shall pursue me all the days of my life.”

“God loves to show mercy. Let me say it again. God loves to show mercy. He is not hesitant or indecisive or tentative in his desires to do good to his people. His anger must be released by a stiff safety lock, but his mercy has a hair trigger. That’s what he meant when he came down on Mount Sinai and said to Moses, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love” (Exodus 34:6). It’s what he meant when he said in Jeremiah 9:24, “I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord.”

“God is never irritable or edgy. His anger never has a short fuse. Instead he is infinitely energetic with absolutely unbounded and unending enthusiasm for the fulfillment of his delights.

“This is hard for us to comprehend, because we have to sleep every day just to cope, not to mention thrive. Our emotions go up and down. We get bored and discouraged one day and feel hopeful and excited another.

“We are like little geysers that gurgle and sputter and pop erratically. But God is like a great Niagara Falls — you look at 186,000 tons of water crashing over the precipice every minute, and think: Surely this can’t keep going at this force year after year after year. Yet it does.

“That’s the way God is about doing us good. He never grows weary of it. It never gets boring to him. The Niagara of his grace has no end.”

Having a solid theological foundation for God’s purposes for suffering (as well as a close relationship with Him) is key to successfully ultimately joyfully navigating the rough waters of life. For those interested in digging more deeply into The Book on the subject of suffering, I call your attention to the following:

19 How great is Your goodness,Which You have stored up for those who fear You,Which You have wrought for those who take refuge in You,Before the sons of men!

.

We have discussed in previous posts the importance of viewing our circumstances through the lens of God’s goodness. The most comprehensive discussion of God’s goodness ever written was by Stephen Charnock in his book on the Existence and Attributes of God. It is a difficult read due to its length (1100 pages) and language style (17th century Elizabethan English). A modern version of Charnock’s chapter on the goodness of God has just been released, called Boundlessly Good: God’s Motive For All That He Does. It is shorter (print version is 130 pages, Kindle version is 236 pages) and much more readable due to modern sentence structures, etc.

.

.

If you truly want to begin to understand the “why’s”, I would encourage you to look at this book. It has been a life-changer for me.

In part 1 of “Narcissism and the Progression of Fools” we discussed the basic sequence of how a person can progressively harden their hearts as they wander away from God’s path. A scoffer (one of the Biblical terms for a narcissist), is one stop along that path.

.

For your further study, following is a list of all the verses which include the Hebrew words which were used in the previous post. I have made a rough attempt at grouping them by subject matter in order to make it easier to digest the large number of verses, but the groupings and their headings are simply a guide. I encourage you to study them for yourselves.

We have until now focused this biblical study of what the secular world calls “narcissism” primarily on the term “scoffer”, as one of the labels applied to those with insolent pride – the Biblical analog to the secular term.

While not specifically called by the English term “fool”, the scoffer is part of a progression of foolishness described in Proverbs, starting with the “simple fool” (or “naive”), and moving all the way to the “committed fool”. Each is a progressively greater degree of turning away from God’s wisdom, and walking an increasingly proud and self-seeking path which is independent from God. Pride is a primary root to this self-seeking path independent from God, with increasing insolence up to the level of “insolent pride” (aka “scoffer”) and beyond. Knowing this progression is helpful in identifying at least one of the ways in which someone can become a narcissist.

5 But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.

…

In the middle of our struggles with the N in our lives, we are typically focused on simply surviving the situation. It seems incredible to think in terms of thriving. And even more incredible to think in terms of moving past bitterness toward becoming a more loving person ourselves – not just toward the N, but people in general.

.

However, God in His goodness toward us is intending to use our struggle to actually build in us a greater capability and capacity for love. As heaven is a world of love, this capacity for love is not just for this world, but also for the one to come (heaven). A greater capacity for love is not equivalent to being more of a doormat for your N, but is instead a broad-based foundation for a more meaningful and fruitful life in all its aspects.

16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.

.

According to I John 2:16, ultimately all “sin issues” that people have (“all that is in the world”) can be boiled down to one of three root causes

Lust / sexual immorality (“the lust of the flesh”)

The desire for things (“the lust of the eyes”)

Pride and the desire to exalt oneself (“the boastful pride of life”).

It could also be a combination of one or more as illustrated by the Pharisees’ taking actions to fulfill desires (“lust of the eyes”) that they then covered up so that they would not look bad (“boastful pride of life”). Continue reading →

34 “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself.Each day has enough trouble of its own.

.

Many of you may think “how am I going to get through this one more day”? Or possibly living in dread of an event coming up that you are pretty sure your N is going to spoil. Or something similar.

There’s another way to look at it. If you look at this through the lens of God’s goodness (i.e. – everything that happens to you is good – it is just a matter of HOW it is good), and if you believe that God’s grace is fully sufficient for every need and that He will provide it as it’s needed – then you can view the impending possible difficulty as an opportunity for God to show Himself strong on your behalf – either through working to shield you, or to give you the measure of internal grace needed to experience joy in the midst of trouble. In other words, rather than dreading it, you could look forward with anticipation to seeing God work on your behalf.

.

2 Chronicles 16:9

9 For the eyes of the Lord move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His……

.

2 Corinthians 12:9

9 And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boastabout my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.

.

But as Jesus taught His disciples to pray…..

Matthew 6:11

11 ‘Give us this day our daily bread.

.

……He does not give us tomorrow’s provision today, He will give that tomorrow – and give today’s provision today, as it is needed. This gives us the opportunity to rely on Him, to trust Him, to need Him just a little bit more. And that daily need for Him further builds our relationship with Him.

.

John Piper has a very helpful illustration in his book “Future Grace“. Piper said to picture God’s promise that His provision of grace will be there when needed like a river flowing toward the edge of a waterfall. The river illustrates the grace coming to us in the future, and the edge of the waterfall is “today” or “this minute”. God is promising the river of grace to continue to flow toward us, while we experience this moment’s grace at the edge of the waterfall. The river of grace continuing to flow can give us peace today that the grace needed tomorrow will be there tomorrow. Therefore, we can simply focus on applying His grace at this moment, and trust Him for future moments.

.

Part of our peace today that grace will be there tomorrow is the anticipation of the opportunity to learn and grow, and to see God act (in big or little ways) on our behalf. While for some, the particular trial may not last very long, for others it may last a lifetime. But we can trust that God has His loving purposes in either case, and that the lesson of trusting Him today for the grace needed tomorrow will carry us throughout our entire lives.

In my distress I called upon the Lord,And cried to my God for help;He heard my voice out of His temple,And my cry for help before Him came into His ears.

.

Psalm 34:4-6

4 I sought the Lord, and He answered me,And delivered me from all my fears.5 They looked to Him and were radiant,And their faces will never be ashamed.6 This poor man cried, and the Lord heard himAnd saved him out of all his troubles.

.

When things are going “well”, our natural inclination is to forget God, to not think that we need Him. We naturally tend to take His goodness for granted. An analogy would be teenagers that simply assume that their parents’ housing, food, access to a car, etc will be there, without really having an interest in spending time with their parents – they just use their parents’ stuff to have a good time, without caring much about their relationship with their parents. Continue reading →